


Dear Forgiveness,

by boyhoodfever



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Drunkenness, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Mutual Pining, POV Second Person, Panic Attacks, Pining, Slow Burn, its such a slow burn im so sorry, now with chaste yet charged hand touching, the mortifying ordeal of being enjolras
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:40:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21666814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boyhoodfever/pseuds/boyhoodfever
Summary: And so it begins.You’re standing at the front of the room and he’s in the back, and he’s drinking. Again. You shouldn’t be this devastated every time you look over and there’s a refilled glass in his hand. A different drink. A dull haze to his dark eyes. You shouldn’t be. (You are)
Relationships: Combeferre/Courfeyrac (Les Misérables), Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables), Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 30
Kudos: 58





	1. Something Other Than The Desperation

**Author's Note:**

> All titles pulled from 'Litany In Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out' by Richard Siken

And so it begins. 

You’re standing at the front of the room and he’s in the back, and he’s drinking. Again. You shouldn’t be this devastated every time you look over and there’s a refilled glass in his hand. A different drink. A dull haze to his dark eyes. You shouldn’t be. (You are)

You’re standing at the head of the room and he scoffs in the middle of your sentence, and you’re so tense (because your mother called, because you’re taking so many classes, because you forgot your meds, because you have to look collected, because, because, because), and you can’t help but tense that much further. 

You aren’t speaking anymore. No one is speaking. No one is speaking because you are supposed to be speaking. Because that’s your job. You stand at the head of the table and he sits thousands of miles away in the back, doused in shadow. Haunting you. Hating you. You ask him if he has anything he would like to add. He does. (He always does.)   
And so he pulls the doubts from the back of your mind like he loves to do, and he lays them out in the air between you, and there are so many (there are always so many), and you choke on them, because it’s the only thing that you can do until he’s said his piece. Your friends look different shades of upset about this. You aren’t looking at your friends. 

You’re looking at him, because he’s the only other person there, suddenly. He is smiling as he unspools his disbelief, tangles you up in it. 

You feel trapped. He’s a spider and you are a moth, and he’ll eat you alive if you let him (you want to let him) you cannot let him, because then that means he’s right. He isn’t right. He cannot be right. 

You are on him as soon as the last word clears his lips. (His lips part to take a deep breath, always, always) and you’re tearing back into him, to see how he likes it, to see that smug fucking smile leave his face. You cut through the thread and throw them back into his face. (Here, you say, take your disbelief. Take it and shove it into the hole where your faith should be). You are a wild animal, cornered and wounded and lashing out, and you hate this part.

His eyes lose the haze, sharpen, and he throws more barbs at you, and this is the only way you talk. This is the only way he’ll permit you to talk to him. Friendship is unspeakable. 

He calls you marble, calls you the sun, calls you untouchable, and you want to cry, you want to scream, you want to plead with him to just let you be, because this is unbearable, because you can’t take this, because you have to take this, because you can’t, you can’t, can’t. (You do. You always do.) 

You aren’t speaking anymore, because he’s said something that knocks the wind out of you, because if you say anything, you’ll start crying. Because if you take this further, you might say something awful (it’s all awful. It’s all always awful.) 

You shuffle your papers and you clear your throat and you don’t look at him because you can’t look at him, and you continue what you were saying, before all of this (you don’t remember a before all of this. You live your life this way, with his teeth at your throat, and it’s thrilling and that’s horrible. You’re horrible for thinking about him like that. He doesn’t like you. He barely even tolerates you. You shouldn’t be devastated by this. You are.) 

And the next time you see him he’s right where you always see him, because your interactions must be chaperoned by your friends, because the two of you alone spells disaster. He sits and sips from a mug that you’re sure is more whisky than coffee, and he raises his eyes to you as you enter. You hate these interactions. If you were friends, you could smile at him. If you were friends, he might smile back. If you were friends he might not grimace into his drink after he drops your gaze. 

But you're not friends, so you stare at him, and he stares back, and his face is that weird, hard mask, and you don’t know how to respond except to avert your eyes as though the tension at the little cluster of tables hadn’t skyrocketed when you walked in. You want to apologize. To whom, you have no idea. You sit at your usual place, you pull out your book, you bury your nose in it and pretend you don't feel his eyes on the side of your face, and you pretend that your traitor body doesn’t flush with heat at the attention (his attention, it’s always been his attention, even now.) 

You don’t get much work done during these types of things. Well, no, that’s not right. You don’t get much done during these types of things when he’s so near to you. When you both aren’t separated by a room, when there are only three people between you (just Jehan, just Bahorel, just Feuilly). When you have no immediate duty. You hear him speak happily like this. He doesn’t argue, except to run circles around your various friends, but that’s all in good fun. You, you know, are the sole recipient of his cold sneer. 

You don’t get much work done during these types of things because you can listen to him laugh and joke, you can listen in about his classes and his commissions and his performances. You can pretend that he’s speaking to you too. 

If you’re lucky (you rarely are), you can glance at him, and if you glance at him, you can see him grinning that big, lopsided grin of his. The one reserved for your friends, for laughing at jokes that they tell, or the conversations they have, or for when he’s proud of them. (You remember the one time he turned that smile on you. You think about it more than you have any right to.)

If he catches you looking, his eyes will dull, and his mouth will curl into more of a grimace than anything, and you will retreat back into your book, or your laptop, or your papers like a child scolded for eavesdropping. These moments aren’t for you. You don’t get to have this. 

You always leave these things with a dull, hollow ache radiating from your chest. You go to class, or to your flat, and your best friends will do their best to help you, even though they don’t know what’s wrong. You force a smile, and they can tell, but they’re trying, and you’re trying, and that’s really all you can ask of one another. 

You go to bed, and you think about his hand in Jehan’s hair, or his strong arms around Joly, and that thing he does where he runs his fingers through his dark hair, and you can’t breathe, because you’re burning, smoke choking you from the inside out. Sometimes, you go to sleep crying. (Sometimes, you don’t go to sleep at all.)

And the cycle repeats. You take on more work, because if you think about that, you can’t think about yourself, or your parents, or your body, (or him, or him, or him) or anything else, and you pile on the stress, and you can’t breathe with it, and you don’t see everyone so much, and then you go to meetings, 

And so it begins.

And you yell at each other, and Courfeyrac and Combeferre look at you, worried, and everyone else looks several shades of tense and upset, and you wish you could stop this happening, but you don’t know how to stop this, because you’ve tried, and he doesn’t want anything from you, and why would he, even, because he told you that you were never really friends, so there’s nothing ruined between you to repair (and you thought there had been, and so he may as well have punched you in the throat, and so you had spit something back at him, because he will not see you cry, absolutely not, and you would have cried if you had done anything but fire back at him and then you turned tail and ran because if it had escalated you wouldn’t have been able to handle it, and he will not see you cry.)

And you end the meeting and everyone is gone, and you’re done cleaning up, and you look over your talking points from earlier, pull the pages out of your binder that he had chosen to tear into today, and you haven't slept more than five hours collectively in the past three days, and you haven’t yet cried from the stress of everything and him in weeks, and you look down at your own careful notes, and before you realize what’s happening, you’re tearing the pages apart, and a dry sob is wrenching it’s way out of your chest, and you’re the only one there, but you still cover your mouth with a hand as you cry. 

It spills out of you like it does (like everything always does), hot and intense and too too too much, and you’re bent double by the force of your own grief, and some part of you wishes that he could see this, because maybe then he would treat you like a human, and he would call you by your name, and he wouldn’t call you marble. (I’m human too, you want to scream at him, sometimes. I’m human, and I hate this thing that you do. I am not perfect, look at me, please, just look at me like I’m one of you). 

You pull yourself together (just enough to stand, to put the ripped paper in your binder and your binder into your bag and your bag on your shoulder, one step at a time is all you can do right now) and you open the door to the stairs.

He’s right in front of you. 

You are forced to acknowledge to yourself that you are not at all in the realm of what might be called out together. Your breath is still hitching with the aftershocks of your tears, and your face is definitely still splotchy, because it has to be, because you are so very rarely lucky, and you probably still have tear tracks on your face, and you take back what you wished about wanting him to see you like this, because you are too raw, and you can’t handle this, and he’s going to say something with a sneer, and you absolutely cannot break down in front of him. 

His fist is raised to knock when you swing the door open, and you have to wonder how much of that he heard. How long he’s been standing there. You flush with embarrassment. You hate this. 

He looks jarred, dark eyes looking you over with some unreadable intensity, and you feel frozen, pinned down by the weight of his stare. Your breath hitches again, a little shuddery inhale, and that seems to break whatever moment he was having in his head, because his eyes snap up to yours, and you look down and away, and then back at him, because you aren’t prepared for this situation, and you don’t know what the protocol is for this. You’re never alone together, not since the beginning, when you thought you were friends but you weren’t, and he’s looking at you and it’s crushing you and you can’t move. 

He looks into the room behind you, and he looks both confused and conflicted, and you can absolutely sympathize with that, and then he’s opening his mouth, and he’s asking you why you’re still here, like you aren’t standing in front of him looking like a trainwreck, and you can only muster up a choked, “I could ask the same of you,” and he grimaces, but it’s not at you (it is), it’s directed at the wall next to him, and he runs a hand through his hair, and you follow the movement with your eyes because this is point blank and you think that you deserve to see this at least.

You see him see you watching him, and you snap your eyes away. No more looking. You should go. You need to go. You need to lock up, also, and that means you need to leave after him, but it makes sense that you would leave with him right now, and why is he here, why is he here,

He clears his throat, shifts his weight, and you’re still breathing all shivery, and he still has that look on his face, and you can’t stand this weird silence, so you tell him that you need to close up, and he nods, weird and stilted, and you realize that the look on his face is pity, because it has to be, because you absolutely look like you’ve been hit by a truck, and that’s probably the only thing less than scorn that he can muster up for this moment. It doesn’t make you as angry as it probably should (which is to say, it doesn’t make you angry at all, and you know from anyone else it really, really would).

He shoves his hands in his pockets, and looks at you, and he nods, and says, “yeah, okay, I just, okay, okay” and you don’t know what that means, and he takes a breath when you just look at him, because how are you supposed to answer that? 

You swipe a hand under your eyes and his eyes trace your movement, and you feel very warm, because his eyes go weird again, and it’s not. It’s maybe not pity. He asks you if you’re okay, and you swallow the lump crawling up your throat, and you nod, because you’re not, and you know that he knows that, and that question is absolutely born from pity. You tell him you’re really fine, really, because he doesn’t look convinced, and you don’t need to convince him, because this isn’t something that the two of you do. 

“I need to lock up,” you tell him, because you do, and you need to escape this, and you maneuver around him and your shoulder brushes his arm and you feel like you might pass out because maybe this is the closest the two of you have ever gotten. You hear him suck in a breath, and you mutter an apology (for what, you're not sure. For everything, maybe. For shouting earlier that night, for not locking up sooner, for not waiting until you were safe in the dark of your room to cry), and you fold your arms over your chest and just try not to fly apart. 

He doesn’t respond. You hear his footsteps behind you and you assume he heard it, and you knew you wouldn’t get a response, but you wish, you wish, you wish (if you had any more tears in you, you think maybe you would cry again. You are endlessly glad that you feel thoroughly gutted. You don’t want him to see you actually cry. To show him that he gets to you at all (he gets you every time.))

You hold the door open for him when you reach it, and you don’t look at him, and you don’t need to see his face to know that the gesture throws him off, and you (wish that you were friends so that it wouldn’t be surprising to him, that you’d hold the door for him other times too, maybe because you’d go places together. Maybe you’d go places together alone. You wish. You wish. You wish.) 

You don’t expect to see him standing at the foot of the steps when you turn. There’s silvery light on his face, and his tongue darts out over his bottom lip. He’s watching you. These two things are most certainly not connected (you wish that they were). You don’t know what to do. 

You stare back at him. You don’t know why you feel so lightheaded. Your breath fogs in front of your face. You ache. 

He opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again. You catch yourself from leaning forward towards him. You’re still at the top of the steps. He’s at the bottom. You’re reminded of the pedestal he insists on placing you on. There’s something bitter that crawls up and into your throat, and suddenly you’re angry. 

You want to ask him why he stayed, why he listened to you cry and didn’t do anything. (You know the answer to the second. You wish you didn’t.) You want to ask him, but you don’t. You pull your eyes away from his and you fly down the stairs. You brush past him again, no words, no apologies. You think you hear his breath stutter in his throat. You can’t hear over the roar of blood in your own ears. You need this night to be over. You need this night to never have happened. You want to hide yourself from this terrible man and you want to make it so that you never have to see him again. (You don’t want that. You don’t.)


	2. You Will Be Alone Always And Then You Will Die

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> more achingly drawn out pining, now with a bonus kiss!!!

The next month is a flurry of work meetings (him) protest school meeting (him) work school work (him) school meetings (him, him,  _ him _ ). You’re far too busy to think about anything not immediately pressing, and you barely think of sleeping or eating or showering, let alone (him) anything else. (He was scarce for a week after the night at the cafe. You try not to think about why. You think about why. He’s just a distraction, at this point.)

And then the end of term comes. And then you have nothing pressing on your chest. And then you have time to breathe. And then everyone wants to have a party, and you have to go. You have to go mainly because it’s your friends, and they’re your family, but also because it’s being held in the flat that you share with Courfeyrac and Combeferre. And it’s fine, everything about it is fine.

Except it’s not, because you have no projects to worry over, because Courfeyrac is a bastard and planned it this way, because he knows that you’ll find a reason to hole yourself up in your room if you are given the slightest opportunity. Combeferre seems to have helped him do this. You grumble endlessly about this, and then find a new book to read. 

The night comes, and you’re on the couch next to Jehan and Feuilly, and your book is nowhere to be found, but you have tea in your hands, and so it’s okay. You’re enjoying yourself, and you are doing so begrudgingly, but you love your friends, and so it really is okay. You catch up with everyone, trade stories, allow yourself to be pulled into hugs and kissed on your cheeks and smothered in love,

And then his voice. It’s loud, because he is always loud, and he is late, and his words are bleeding into one another, and so he is drunk. And it takes a decent amount for him to get like this (you know. You watch. You worry. You want to help him. You aren’t allowed to help him.) He comes into view, bringing his roaring laughter into the room with him, and everyone else in smiling too, and you can’t, you can’t, you can’t do anything but watch him as he drops onto the other couch, and you see him see you, and you see him grimace, and you see him take another large sip of whatever is in his glass, like you’re something bitter he needs to chase down. You might very well be, to him. You know this. It doesn’t stop you from feeling every bit of the sorrow that comes from that look. (It is not the first time. It will absolutely not be the last.)

It’s two twenty three in the morning and all of your friends are sleeping over. You are all adults. This fact does not matter. You are not asleep because you are filled with too much angry, buzzing static to stay too still for too long. You are out on the fire escape, and it is far too cold for you to be there without shoes. It is far too cold for you to be outside this late, and just a bit too windy, but it’s the only thing keeping you from losing it, so here you are.

You don’t hear the person come through the window behind you, don’t feel the footsteps hit the platform, you don't even hear the breath of another person behind you (you’re somewhere else, then. Somewhere distant and quiet). You don’t notice until a voice from above you swears and stumbles back with a resounding clang, and you yelp and turn so fast you nearly smack your head into the railing. 

Grantaire is standing across from you, holding a hand to his chest. You stare at each other, and it’s so reminiscent of that night that your skin crawls. He asks you what the hell you’re doing out here. He has that weird grimace on his face again, and that hurts, so you scoff even though you don’t really feel it and you tell him that you could ask him the same thing. And there’s that night again, the one you can’t get out of your head. 

He notices too, or he must, because he gives a hysterical little laugh, runs his hand through his hair (freshly cut by Courfeyrac three days ago. It frames his face very nicely. You try not to think about it), the air feels thick and charged as you drag it into your lungs and push it back out again. In, out. In, out. “Jesus.” He says, laughs again. “Is this where you disappeared to?”

You blink. You didn’t think he noticed. The thought hadn’t even crossed your mind. You tell him that, yes. You needed air. He gapes at you, and then looks down at your bare feet. 

“It’s fucking freezing out.” He says, as though you don’t know. You tell him that you do know. You tell him that it helps you clear your head. That it helps you think. The words sound distant to you. You take a deep breath. He tells you that there are warmer places to clear your head. He sounds like he’s struggling with this too. You suppose you must look a mess. You’re probably shivering (marble doesn’t shiver, so there), you probably look sallow (marble doesn’t need to eat, so there), you probably look like you need to sleep (marble doesn’t need sleep, so there). 

You ask him why he’s out here, now that you’ve answered his question, and he stares at you for a long moment, and then he sighs and drags a hand over his face. He tells you that, shockingly enough, he’s there for the same reason. “You’re shaking.” He adds, and that acknowledgement feels like such a victory, and he says it without any scorn, and you feel the world tilt, and you know that you’re being absolutely ridiculous, because it’s probably glaringly obvious. But you nod, and shrug, and lift your chin up towards him, challenging. He looks like he has no idea what to do with this situation. You’re out of it just enough that you aren’t preoccupied with processing (most likely, you couldn’t even if you were). 

“You should go to bed.” He says, and maybe because it’s because of how unsure he sounds, or maybe because it’s him that’s standing above you speaking that makes the idea almost palatable. You look up at him. He looks down at you. He takes a step forward. You have to crane your head up to look at him. He hesitates and holds out a hand to help you up. Your heart catches, stutters. You stop breathing. His fucking hand (his fucking hand). You reach out with shaking fingers and allow him to pull you to your feet. He does this with such ease, and your blood fizzes. 

He hisses, looks at you with dark, alarmed eyes. “Your hands are fucking frozen.” He says, and he’s right, and his hands are so, so warm. You take your hand back before his touch brands you (it feels like it’s hot enough to). He takes a step back like he’s just remembered who you are and how he feels about you, and how he maybe shouldn’t care. It feels like a slap to the face, and you shake your head to clear it. You’re being ridiculous. 

You look at him for as long as you can, and you have no idea what your face is doing right now, but you don’t really care. You motion to the window. “I’m going to,” and you trail off, because he’s looking at you with this strangely naked expression when you glance up at him again, and it looks so similar to what your heart is doing in your chest, and it freezes you in place. You can’t look away, and his eyes drop to your lips and then back up, and you cannot move, and you cannot breathe, because he does it again, and so you didn’t imagine it, and oh (please, let me have this), oh (just once. You’ll take anything he’ll give you), oh (you’d give him anything he asked for). 

You look down at his lips. You see him see you look, and he lets out a little punched-out breath, and shifts forward, and you sway towards him (magnetic, he’s magnetic, and if you get too close he’ll have to pull you off of him). He murmurs your name (not Apollo). You’re human for him, (at least right now). You’re breathing fast, and you think that maybe he sees that too, but you move closer, and he moves closer,

And your lips are pressed to his. 

Your blood  _ sings _ . 

He is warm and solid, and your hands are on his face, because it’s important that he never, never moves away, and his arms are around you hands pressed flat to your hips, your upper back, tight, tight, and he lets out a shuddering breath, and you let out a pathetic little whimper, because, damnit, you can smell him, and you can feel him, and you can hear him, and you can taste him, and it’s nothing like you imagined, and it’s everything you’ve wanted, and 

Then it’s over. He pulls away quickly (shoves you away), and you stumble because you were leaning into him, because you need to be close, but he’s putting as much space as he can between the two of you, and you want to cry, because he doesn’t look happy (why doesn’t he look  _ happy _ ), he looks panicked. He looks like he’s just processed that he’s made a mistake. 

You open your mouth, and you say his name, and you try to reach for him, and he pulls back further. It was a mistake, he says. It won’t happen again, he promises, and adds that he’s probably still just drunk, and that it’s nothing for you to worry about. 

And then he’s through the window and you’re frozen again, your heart somewhere three stories below you, a raspberry stain on the snow. 

It takes you too long to realize that there are tears on your face, that you’re sitting down again, that you’re even colder now than you were before, that you need to go inside, because the black sky has faded to grey, and you don’t want to be out here for someone to find you. 

He isn’t where on the couch where he had been sleeping before you went out. You aren’t surprised. You shouldn’t be devastated. (You are.)

You go to your room. You slip under the covers, shivering and sniffling. Exhaustion takes you before you have the chance to cry again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (i had more fun writing this than i should have...)  
> please comment your thoughts and leave me kudos if you enjoyed this!


	3. In Your Head, The Sound Of Glass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [“What am I going to do with you?” Courfeyrac says to you, throwing his hands up. “It’s not about you being sick!” He looks at Combeferre for help. Combeferre sighs. 
> 
> “Well, it is about you getting sick, but not entirely.” He pauses, regarding you for a long moment. “We’re worried that something happened to you, and that you’re not telling us, and you’re running yourself into the ground like this because you don’t know how else to cope.”
> 
> You blink at him. He’s right, of course. You have been doing that, and they would know the signs. You’ve done it before and they’ve witnessed the more messy parts of the fallout. You suppose you shouldn’t be caught off guard by this assessment. And now you’ve been silent for long enough that they’ll know that he’s right. Well. You knew this was coming (you are relieved. You are terrified).]

You haven’t told anyone about what happened. You go about your days with a vigor usually reserved for end of term, or the midst of planning for a protest, and that’s odd for you, but the alternative is melting into your bed and never emerging. Everyone knows that something is up. You can guess well enough that he hasn’t told anyone (and why would he? It was a mistake. He made that much clear), so you think it must show on your face. But you keep up your flurry of working extra shifts and researching material for meetings, and writing (and writing and writing), and it works, and you’re fine.

But you’re not fine, because you’re hurting, and that should be fine, except now it’s not, because you’ve been given a glimpse of what might have been, and then it was ripped from you, and it will never happen again, and this hurt is different somehow. It’s becoming harder to keep yourself in check during meetings. He doesn’t stop firing at you, and you haven’t stopped arguing back, but it has a harder edge to it now. You both spit out awful things at each other, and it’s not just during meetings either. You keep your silence until he prods at you, and you are so, so easy to provoke, and he knows it. He drinks more now, too. You know that you’re not imagining it, because everyone’s concerned about it (you’re thankful no one seems to notice the bags under your eyes, or the way you’re running on fumes, or the way that you’ve been forgetting to eat. If they made you stop, which they could, you wouldn’t be able to keep everything in).

And then you’re arguing with him during a meeting after a particularly busy week, and you open your mouth to refute some piece of bullshit he’s said, and your ears go just a bit muffled, and spots dance in front of your eyes, and the next thing you know, you’re sitting in your chair with a jacket wrapped around your shoulders. Someone’s hand is on your forehead, and you hear Combeferre’s voice say something about a fever, and Courfeyrac has an arm around you (for warmth or support you’re not sure, but both are very, very nice.) 

Through the chaos, you see Grantaire standing at the edge of the group, brow furrowed. He looks upset, which strikes you as odd. He sees you looking at him, and his brows tug together, and he frowns and looks away. You don’t know how to take that (you don’t know how you want to take that). 

You don’t really get the chance to think about it as you’re bundled into a car, and someone is saying something about something being up, and then about bed, and bed sounds nice, and you blink, and you’re in bed, but you’re still cold, and so you curl up into a ball under the covers and you sleep. 

When you come to, you feel like you’ve been thrown down three flights of stairs backwards. Your limbs ache. Your head pounds. Your throat is raw and your mouth is dry and you feel like all of the water in the world won’t help. You poke your head out of your cocoon of blankets and find the pink tones of a sunset poking it’s fingers back at you. You groan and roll over, closing your eyes again. 

“He wakes at fucking last.” Courfeyrac’s cheerful voice cuts through the wall of blankets a little too well. You groan again. He laughs. You stick a hand out to make a rude gesture. He laughs again, grabs your hand and kisses it. You curse at him. He tells you that if you sit up, he has hot tea for you. You poke your head out again, reaching for him. He helps you up and you sip your tea, wrap your hands around it to try and leech the warmth out of it and into your body. It feels heavenly. You tell him this and he grins proudly. 

You’re confined to bed by a rotating shift of friends (there is a conspicuous lack of one face, but the two of you aren’t friends. You’re barely even acquaintances, so it shouldn’t even matter. So of course it matters.) You read and you sleep, you write and listen to the news, you sleep more. You try not to think about dark, mournful eyes, and you absolutely don’t think about warm hands (warm lips) on yours. 

And then you’re okay again, and everyone (not everyone) is still concerned, obviously, because you’ve only done that once before, and that was during a time where it made sense for you to be so absolutely preoccupied that you forgot to take care of yourself. You know that they plan on dragging it out of you one way or another, why exactly you’ve done this. You plan on keeping it to yourself as much as possible. 

You think that your flatmates know. You talk in your sleep, you know this, and it gets worse when you are sick. Or if you’re stressed. So it happens a lot. Fine. Whatever. It’s just that usually people aren’t around to hear you. And there were people there to hear you, and so you think maybe everyone is speculating, but only Combeferre and Courfeyrac have the true opportunity to corner you into talking about it. 

It happens one Sunday afternoon. You’re sitting at the kitchen table, working on an essay, and then your laptop is taken out from under your hands so quickly that you can’t do anything but reach after it with a swear. (You don’t yelp). Courfeyrac hands it to Combeferre who slips it into its case and places it on the counter and out of your reach. You glare at him. He gives you a blithe smile in return. Courfeyrac plants himself on the table almost directly in front of you, sticks a hand into your hair to muss it up. You swat him away, scowling. 

“You have my attention! What do you want?” You hiss, trying to smooth your hair down. They both look at each other, hesitating, and you note for the first time how  _ guarded _ they both look. You’re immediately nervous. “What?” You ask, trying to keep a level head and a level voice. “What happened? Is everyone okay?” 

Courfeyrac holds his hands up, placating. Combeferre shakes his head. “Everything is fine. Everyone’s fine.”

“Well,” Courfeyrac amends, “we want to talk about you.” 

“Why?” You ask, and something like ice shoots through you, because this is it. This is where you tell them (and you are relieved. And you are terrified.) “I’m fine. I’m not sick anymore.” Courfeyrac is shaking his head on you, exasperated. Combeferre raises an eyebrow at you. You flounder. 

“What am I going to do with you?” Courfeyrac says to you, throwing his hands up. “It’s not about you being sick!” He looks at Combeferre for help. Combeferre sighs. 

“Well, it is about you getting sick, but not entirely.” He pauses, regarding you for a long moment. “We’re worried that something happened to you, and that you’re not telling us, and you’re running yourself into the ground like this because you don’t know how else to cope.”

You blink at him. He’s right, of course. You have been doing that, and they would know the signs. You’ve done it before and they’ve witnessed the more messy parts of the fallout. You suppose you shouldn’t be caught off guard by this assessment. And now you’ve been silent for long enough that they’ll know that he’s right. Well. You knew this was coming (you are relieved. You are terrified). 

You start at the beginning. Well, no. You start at the closest thing to can equate to the beginning (this being the week after you met him). As soon as you say Grantaire’s name, Courfeyrac’s eyes widen to the extent that you’re mildly concerned they might fly out of his head. You receive a fluttering hand in your face when you try to ask. 

You tell them about the fights, how you’re always rebuffed when things seem calm enough for you to approach him. You skirt around the cycles of fight-fight-yell-cry-repeat, but you can tell by the way the two of them share a look, they’ve suspected as much. You tell them about how you want him like you’ve never wanted anyone, and at this Combeferre sighs and pulls out a ten. Courfeyrac takes it from him gleefully, pocketing it with a smug little smile. You glare at them, but Courfeyrac just motions for you to continue. You do. 

When you get to the part about locking up, Courfeyrac looks thoughtful, and you pause to ask him why. Combeferre looks just as out of the loop as you feel, which is gratifying. Courfeyrac tells you that Grantaire had insisted on staying behind alone, and that he had wanted to ask you something. He says that when neither of you said anything about it after, you assumed Grantaire had chickened out. You blanch. 

“I had a panic attack.” You confess, wincing when they both look at you sharply. “I thought I was alone! And- and when I fight with him he always manages to spell out all of my doubts in front of everyone, and it was just too much that night, and… I thought I was alone.” You shrink down into your seat and you dont look at them as you tell them how the rest of the night played out. How he hadn’t asked you anything (Courfeyrac resolutely will not tell you what the question was when you press him), and then how that was the start of your work frenzy. 

They both tell you that you should have called them. You shrug. If you need to, you will. You always have. You thought you were alone, and you weren't, and that’s it. Nothing more (you all know that it’s so much more). 

You almost don’t tell them about the kiss. Almost. You’ve moved to the couch and they’ve sandwiched you between them, providing comforting pressure from both sides. You feel less like you’re about to fly backwards out of your skin and more like you’re vibrating just a bit too fast. (This is an enormous improvement.) You take two deep breaths and rip the bandage off. 

“He kissed me.” 

Courfeyrac inhales a mouthful of tea which quickly makes a reappearance through his nose (some part of your mind that isn’t screaming at you for telling them laughs at this). Combeferre lets out a strangled noise and looks at you, shell shocked. “He  _ what? _ ” You grimace and slap Courfeyrac between the shoulders as he coughs. 

“I’m not saying it again.” You say, just a little bit miserable. It’s not like he had enjoyed it. It’s not like he confessed his love for you (as if). Courfeyrac sputters and gets his breathing under control, and then he demands that you at least explain. You cover your face with your hands. 

“It was after the party. The one right before I got sick. I was… I don’t know, I needed to pull myself together. You know how I get sometimes.” You don’t need to look up to see them both confirm. You know that they know. When everything you try to keep below the surface save for carefully controlled passion (that barely controlled anger that Grantaire loves to break out of you). “And it was cold out. And I didn’t notice, but he came out, and we didn’t really have a conversation so much as we just… exchanged words?” You drop your hands, cringing. For all your love of words, you sure are awful talking about yourself. “But that doesn’t matter. It’s, he helped me up, and my hand was cold, and he didn’t let go of it, and I pulled away, because I couldn’t just let the moment be, and then I was going to go to bed, but he was looking at me, and I was looking at him, and I couldn’t fucking move, and then he kissed me.” You still don’t look at either of your friends. You tip your head back to keep the burning in your eyes at bay. “And it was the best thing. It was amazing. He was so warm and his hands, and-” your sob catches you off guard. You drop your head back into your hands. “I kissed him back. And then he stopped, and said that it was a mistake and that he was still drunk, and he said that it would never happen again. He said that and then he left.” 

Courfeyrac lets out a deep breath, wraps an arm around your shoulders. Combeferre is in front of you then, wrapping you up between himself and Courfeyrac. You sob harder, and then everything else is spilling out of you, how you were never even that torn up about him seeing you so vulnerable, because you thought that maybe then he’d see you as human, and treat you as human, and then you would be allowed to be friends with him. 

They stay wrapped around you, riding it out with you until you’ve stopped crying and then longer. Combeferre breaks away with a kiss to the crown of your head, murmuring something about going to make tea, and Courfeyrac coaxes you out of the kitchen and onto the couch. You spend the rest of the day drifting through their low, calm conversation, eyes staring through the nature documentary that they put on as background noise. 


	4. You Know The Story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Don’t make me say it, Apollo,” he says finally, and god but you really fucking hate that nickname. “You know what I’m talking about.”
> 
> “That’s not my name.” You blurt out, because that’s the only thing you can think to say (because that’s the only thing you can think to say that isn’t asking him why he cares. Or asking him why he kissed you).

It’s not that things change for the better after you talk about it. Things don’t get worse either. They just. Shift. You can talk about it now, which is nice in some ways. Courfeyrac teases you for your crush, and you get to roll your eyes and smile about it. Combeferre will share knowing, affectionate looks with you when you can’t stop sneaking glances and he catches you. It’s not common knowledge, (you don’t know if you want it to be) but it’s shared knowledge, and it makes it a little bit easier to bear. 

And so it begins. 

You’re standing at the front of the room and he’s in the back, and he’s drinking. Always. You shouldn’t be this mournful every time you look over and there’s a refilled glass in his hand. A different drink. A dull haze to his dark eyes. You shouldn’t be. (You have no right to be.)

You’re standing at the head of the room and he scoffs in the middle of your sentence, because of course he does, and you’re stressed, and you’re tired, but you close your eyes and take a deep breath. 

You stand at the head of the table and he sits thousands of miles away in the back, doused in shadow. Haunting you. Hating you. You ask him if he has anything he would like to add. (He always does.) But he looks off balance, almost. He expected you to snap, you realize. He expected you to snap, and you didn’t (you are human. You can change, you are not set in stone.) He starts in on you anyway, and it’s all the same. He plucks out all of the flaws and drags out all of your doubts and throws them on the table in between you, and you take another breath, and shuffle your notes. 

It’s nothing that he hasn’t done before. It’s nothing that shouldn’t be expected. But you’re trying, trying so hard to not let him back you into a corner, trying not to snap. It’s exhausting. You’re tired of this, and you know that everyone can tell. 

But you can’t help but treat this thing differently. He kissed you, and it was a mistake, and so now you know that the only thing between the two of you is dust and rot (it has always been this way, and it has not always been this way). 

You let the argument drop after a few moments, and you pick back up where you left off when he interrupted you. He gapes at you, you see heads turn towards you, and you feel just a bit proud. Combeferre’s fingers close around your wrist (a subtle congratulation in his way) and you push down a smile. You can do this. You press on. 

You don’t know what you expected, really. (That’s a lie. You know what you were expecting. You were expecting a slow friendship, a sapling poking up through the ash of your mutual anger. Well, you hoped for it. A voice in your head that sounds infuriatingly like him mocks you from the corner of your mind. It was an idealistic aspiration. Doomed to fail like everything else. You resolutely ignore the voice.)

He’s cornered you after a meeting. It’s dark out, snowing like hell, and you volunteered to stay behind and clean up. You’re ahead of your work, and you don’t have class until late tomorrow, or work until the day after. You can afford to be up late and to risk your tentatively stabilized sleep schedule. 

Anyway. 

This time, he doesn’t catch you during a panic attack (you are thankful for this). Rather, he climbs to the top of the stairs and knocks on the doorframe as you’re stacking chairs onto tables. You start and almost drop your chair at the noise, and he snorts at you, smirking that stupid little smile of his. (You keep your eyes away from his lips.) You close your eyes and take a breath, trying to calm your racing heart. You tell him that he startled you. He grins at you, and it sounds like mockery when he tells you dryly that he had indeed noticed. You put the last chair on top of the table and you turn to face him, and you ask him with a sigh why he’s still here. (You don’t think you imagine the way a grimace flickers across his face. He remembers too. The night that he had to ask you something. The night that he heard you crumble. You force the memory  _ down _ and  _ back _ and  _ away _ . You are changing, after all). 

“You seem off.” He says. You have to take a step back. The small of your back hits the table. You resolutely don’t scrutinize the implications of this interaction (yes you do). All you can do is blink dumbly at him. 

“I’m fine.” You say, but you’re not, (because he asked you,) and you are (because he asked you.) The silence stretches on for just too long. He shifts, you catch a whiff of something. Whiskey, maybe. You don’t drink, so you don’t exactly have a nose for these things. He’s looking at you oddly, those dark eyes trained on your face. “What do you mean, off?” You ask, because you’re curious. He  _ has _ noticed your restraint, that much is obvious. You want to know what he makes of it. (You want to know what he makes of you. You already know what he makes of you.)

You watch him flounder in the doorway, mouth opening and closing once before he runs a hand through his hair. You want to make him say it. You want him to acknowledge your mutual destruction, and you want him to see that you’re better off with your civility. 

“Don’t make me say it, Apollo,” he says finally, and god but you really fucking hate that nickname. “You know what I’m talking about.”

“That’s not my name.” You blurt out, because that’s the only thing you can think to say (because that’s the only thing you can think to say that isn’t asking him why he cares. Or asking him why he kissed you). 

He blinks, taken aback, and then you watch his mouth go from surprise, to that grimace, to that cold mask you’re so well acquainted with. Adrenaline pools into your veins, reading you for a fight. (You want to take it back.) You feel buzzed with how close you are to him (you’re glad you said it.) 

“But it’s so fitting, isn’t it?” He says, anger apparent in his voice. You’re cut through with regret. You don’t want a fight, suddenly. Suddenly, you’re exhausted. Suddenly, you recognize his comment on your ‘offness’ as the tentative olive branch that it was. (Maybe he’s right. Maybe it is fitting. But if it’s fitting, it’s only because he gave you the task of growing into it.) You slump against the table. 

“No, I don’t think it is.” You say, and your voice is so quiet (weak). You can’t bring yourself to look at him (weak). “And,” you continue, because you cannot stop your own mouth from moving, it seems. “And I would like it if you called me by my name or not at all.” When you flick your eyes back up to him from where they’ve been resting on the floor, Grantaire looks like he’s been punched. You rub a hand across your face. “I’m sorry.” You say, and you mean that about everything. “It’s been bothering me. And you have noticed my, what, ‘offness’, so,” you trail off. His face is stormy. That’s not what you meant to happen, but you won’t take it back (you almost wish that you could). You push on (you will say what he refuses to.). “I’ve been trying not to be as much of an ass to you in meetings. That’s all, really.”

“Why?” His tone is scathingly sardonic. “So we can be  _ friends _ ?” He says it with such vitriol that you physically flinch back (of course he would snap at the idea. Of course. You shouldn’t be this devastated, god  _ dammit _ ). If he notices this, he doesn’t react to it. 

“Would that really be the end of the world?” You ask, small again. You close your eyes, because suddenly they’re burning with tears and you absolutely cannot look at him. (He hates you. He will always hate you. This is a battle you will never win.)

“It might very well be,  _ Enjolras _ .” He spits, slurring, and then he’s gone, stumbling down the stairs, the smell of alcohol in his wake. You wait until you hear the door to the cafe close, and then you let yourself sink to the floor, crying raw and ugly into your hands. You hate this. You hate  _ him _ for making this so impossible.

The drive home is over in a blink, and you stumble into the flat half past midnight to see that everyone else is asleep. (That’s just as well. You’d rather not have to talk about this just yet.) Slowly, you put the kettle on, practicing breathing exercises, and thinking that, well, at least you didn’t yell. It’s a flimsy comfort, really, now that you know that he doesn’t give a shit about you. All breathing does is let you think about how his sneer bit through the syllables of your name, chewing them up and spitting them back at you. (You shouldn’t be this devastated. You are.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry lads, it's going to have to get worse before it gets better... oops!
> 
> please let me know what you think! all of the feedback makes me so, so happy


	5. You Want A Better Story. Who Wouldn’t?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You don’t remember the last time he actually said your name to you. (Tears leak out of the corners of your eyes. Water damage.) You won’t stop it. You won’t go back to how you were. (Water damage. Your shoulder hurts with how you’ve bent yourself out of shape.) You will be better. Even if he hates you. Even if he will never stop hating you. (Oh, how he has bent you out of shape. Malleable, wet wood.) Your fingernails dig into the soft skin of your side, you roll, pressing your face into the pillow, pressing the pillow into the wall. (How would it feel to press your face into his chest?) (You will never, ever know.)"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a mild courferre interlude; enjolras makes a decision

It takes all of your self control to not fling yourself into a self destructive frenzy again. But you succeed, and you tell Combeferre and Courfeyrac what happened, and they hold your hands through it, and you are grateful, grateful, grateful (you wish it was easier. Courfeyrac tells you that he owes for the innumerable times in lycee that you cleaned him up and got him home after parties. Combeferre tells you to stop fussing and accept the help. You love them. You are full of longing and love. It hurts. It’s okay.)

You run through your arguments with yourself every night, making notes in the margins of your notes, running yourself in circles and riling yourself up to practice calming down. You don’t think of this as odd until you’re up at three in the morning and Combeferre walks in on you muttering feverishly to yourself, glaring down at the kettle as it warms on the stove. You start when you see him out of the corner of your eye, and he gives you a bemused look. The look asks you if you’d care to explain. (You don’t much care to explain. Your face feels too warm.) You hesitate, and then you mumble out an explanation. His eyebrows rise so quickly that you’re momentarily afraid that they might fly off of his face. 

“O...kay,” he says. You duck your head away from him and pull another mug down. (You squash down an idea that you could have these early morning moments with someone else.) 

“What are you doing up?” You ask instead, turning the stove just before the kettle can whistle. You drop bags of chamomile and lavender (made specially for the two of you from Jehan) into the two mugs and then pour the water over them. When you look up at Combeferre again, he looks thoughtful. 

“I don’t,” he trails off, frowning at the floor. “Enj,” his voice sounds so serious that you freeze, gaze snapping to him. 

“What?” You ask, and you must sound alarmed (you think this alarm is justified. Your mind is flying double time through worst case scenarios), because he’s looking away from you, eyes downcast. When he doesn’t try again, your heartbeat kicks into motion and you try again. “ _ Ferre _ ,” you say, and he sighs. Pushes his fingers up and under his glasses to rub at his eyes. 

“I wanted to talk to you about…” he trails off with a groan. “About Courfeyrac.” 

It’s not an answer you were expecting by any means, and so it takes your thoughts a minute to switch tracks onto a different line of anxiety. You try to keep your voice steady when you lower your voice and ask, “what about him?” 

“I- well, alright. Christ.” He pulls out a chair from the little kitchen table and sits heavily. You pass him the tea and pull out a chair, sitting in front of him. 

“Take your time.” You tell him, even though you’re dying to know what’s going on between your two best friends. 

“I think I’m in love with him.” 

Your brain goes offline for a few seconds, but you need to say something about it, so your traitorous mouth supplies, “I know?”, in a tone of voice that suggests what you really mean to say is, ‘well, obviously’. Combeferre looks at you, deeply alarmed, and you trip over your tongue trying to clarify. “I mean, Ferre, he ends up in your bed most nights, I honestly sort of figured you both would just out and tell me you were together when you were ready to.” Combeferre is looking at you with an expression of relief and frustration. The effect of the warring emotions on his face makes him look a bit like he’s trying to shit. You squash the comment down. 

“That’s the problem.” He says, pained. “We already act like it, but it’s just how he is, I think. With friends, I mean.” 

“Who else in this group do you know that Courfeyrac routinely shares a bed with?” You ask, baffled. Combeferre gives you a withering look and begins to count on his fingers. 

“Jehan, Marius,” (you are at once unsurprised and ashamed of your consistent lack of noticing these things.) You have no idea what your face is doing, but Combeferre gives you a little knowing smile as he continues the list. “Feuilly, Eponine even, once, and,” he hesitates, “Grantaire.” You flush. (You refuse to be jealous of Courfeyrac. You absolutely will not allow yourself.) (There is nothing even to be jealous of. You are being ridiculous.)

(You wonder how his hair would look, all mussed from sleep.)

“Okay,” you say. “Point made. But you’re the most frequent, that must count for something.” He grimaces. 

“That’s what I want to think, but we live together.” His tone is the closest you think you’ve ever heard him come to whining. He covers his face in his hands. “And he just wraps himself around me, and it’s wonderful, and I woke up the other week and realized that I want to wake up like that for the rest of my life.”

It’s sickeningly sweet, honestly, and you bite back a smile. You think about the way that Courfeyrac looks at him, how he talks to Combeferre in comparison to everyone else, passing your memories under a microscope and piecing a patchwork image out of it that you decide is too obvious for even you to ignore. “Out of all of the nights in the week,” you start, thoughtfully, and he peeks between his fingers at you. “Out of seven nights, about how many does he spend in bed with you?” 

He emerges fully from behind his hands, spine straightening, and you feel a little rush of pride. (You may not be good with your own emotions, but Combeferre is similar enough to you that you usually know exactly what to say to him. You’re not completely inept.)

“Five times out of seven, on average I think.” Combeferre says, brightening a bit. “Usually it’s full weeks, though. Especially recently.” 

“Recently as of when?” 

He opens his mouth, closes it, and then frowns. “For. A month.” You cannot keep the smile from twisting your lips. He looks at you, and gives a little smile of his own in return. “Oh,” he says, and then chuckles. You reach out and take his hand.

You both finish your tea, chatting idly about nonsense until both mugs are empty. When you stand, he pulls you into a hug, tucking your head under his chin. You hug him back, a little fiercely when he thanks you for talking it through with him. You tell him of course, you tell him that you’re glad he told you. That you’re glad that you could help.

Later, when Combeferre is in his bed (their bed) and you are in yours (you wish it was  _ his _ ), thoughts of  _ him _ seep back into you. Water damage. Warping the grain of you until you’re curled up into yourself, twisted and changed. You fold an arm around your middle. Pretend it’s his. You put a pillow in the space between you and the wall, press back into it. Pretend it’s him. 

You touch the fingers of your free hand, the one not playing pretend, to your lips, and you close your eyes, and you think about the kiss. ( _ Why, so we can be friends? _ ) You screw your eyes shut, fingers become a fist, and you bite. You will not cry. ( _ Would it be the end of the world? _ ) You will not cry. (It stings, it always, always stings. You  _ have _ to stop being this devastated.) 

You don’t remember the last time he actually said your name to you. (Tears leak out of the corners of your eyes. Water damage.) You won’t stop it. You won’t go back to how you were. (Water damage. Your shoulder hurts with how you’ve bent yourself out of shape.) You will be better. Even if he hates you. Even if he will never stop hating you. (Oh, how he has bent you out of shape. Malleable, wet wood.) Your fingernails dig into the soft skin of your side, you roll, pressing your face into the pillow, pressing the pillow into the wall. (How would it feel to press your face into his chest?) (You will never, ever know.) 

Unbidden, you think of your best friends in the next room. Curled around each other, a perfect fit. Key and lock. Perfect for one another by design. It's sweet. You are happy for them

You are happy for them, (you think you want a better story). You uncurl your arm from yourself. Wipe your tears. Maybe  _ he  _ was right ( _ it might very well be, Enjolras _ ). You’ve been stuck on him for so long. Maybe you need to stop looking for that story in him. Maybe you need to admit that there’s nothing you can hope for except friendship. He doesn't want you, ( _ it was a mistake, he says _ ). He has made that abundantly clear. 

You yank the pillow back up to the headboard, wipe your eyes more roughly this time. Your shoulder is sore, and you sit up, rolling it back, rubbing feeling into it. You will put yourself right, and then you will be fine. You will bend back into yourself, singular and self contained. It wouldn’t be the end of the world, even, if you bend your love for him out of you too. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> update because all of the ppl who comment have been so so sweet and i just saw all of them... love u all


	6. Here Is The Tabernacle, Reconstructed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end of the semester comes around again, this time with sunshine and warmth instead of cold and dark, and you spend your time in a patch of sun on the carpet of your collective living room. Or you try to. The loud party blower Courfeyrac blows in your ear puts a fairly decent barrier between you and your catnap. Your flailing hand catches him across the cheek, and as he falls back, laughing with his hand clutched to his face, you don’t feel all that bad. (He makes you kiss it better. He is perfectly fine. You smile so hard it hurts.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LIFE UPDATE:  
> this chapter coupled by the literal mayhem of everything was literal hell to write. im mildly homeless and currently couch surfing, so that and school and family nonsense AND moving around and working has been making it hard to write. BUT, that said, im going to try to write for this as much as i can. i have the rest of this loosely planned out, so it's just a matter of writing the damn chapters.  
> i WILL be editing this chapter at some point, but right now im tired of looking at it and i need to dig into my OTHER fic, which needs both my help and my attention dearly
> 
> thank you all for your patience and welcome to anyone new, i love you all and i appreciate the attention that this has been getting. 
> 
> without further ado, please enjoy these idiots fumbling

And so it begins. 

You’re standing at the front of the room and he’s in the back, and he’s drinking. Again. You shouldn’t be this devastated every time you look over and there’s a refilled glass in his hand. A different drink. A dull haze to his dark eyes. You shouldn’t be. (You let it roll off your back with a deep breath and a shake of your head. You aren’t wanted by him. You do not want to be.)

You’re standing at the head of the room and he scoffs in the middle of your sentence, and you’re ready for it, so you force your shoulders to drop and inhale slowly (you don’t think of how his eyes darken at this), and let out a breath. 

You continue speaking. You are speaking because you are supposed to be speaking. Because that’s your job right now. You stand at the head of the table and he sits thousands of miles away in the back, doused in shadow. Haunting you. Hating you. You do not ask him if he has anything he would like to add, even though you know he does. (He always does.) You tell him that if he would like to speak he can wait until you are finished with your motion like everyone else. 

He sits back, blinks, and turns his dark eyes back to his dark drink with a dark mutter. (He does not have anything to say when you are finished and the floor is opened to comments and questions. What he wants to say to you is rarely amicable enough to be either.)

You move on with the meeting.

Your plan is as follows. You will not rise to his bait, you will not seek him out. You will be cooly polite to him, nothing more, nothing less. You will acclimate to this, you will let him see that you will not be destroyed by him. If he thinks you cold, thinks you marble, thinks you inhuman for your new indifference, well. It won’t be any different from what he thought of you before. 

You have decided that it’s no use trying to change his mind about you (you do not think about how you still want him to. That will pass. You will bend it out of you. It will not matter in a month, in a year. You will grow out of this, and if you do not, you will break it out of you.) 

You aren’t sure if he knows what to make of this. You practice your breathing, you practice thinking about what he’s interjecting, and acknowledging it if it carries weight, you practice letting go of the cutting words. Practice does not make perfect, but you find that not rising to the bait seems to discourage him more than anything, so you inhale, and you count to five, and you let it go. 

And after some time, you find that you’re maybe letting  _ him _ go.

You find this in the way your heart seems lighter, how your shoulders seem looser. How, when you’re lying awake at night, it is not tears for him that rock you to sleep. You are letting him go, you are letting yourself grow. You are making yourself grow. You are so very proud of yourself. (You wish you were not still so bitter about having to do this. You ignore the sour taste in the back of your mouth.) 

He shifts too (you wish he would have done this sooner. You’re not one to complain, though). He speaks out less (fine), he’s more reserved in his little corner (you can deal with that). 

What you can’t deal with is when he misses meetings (that’s new).

The first time it happens you stomp down the acid feeling of panic. He’s always there, you thought to yourself. He will come (he won’t). Maybe he’s just late (he’s never  _ this _ late). Maybe he’s sick (you know that’s not the reason. You know it like you know his disdain towards you, instinctively and bitterly.)

He doesn’t miss meetings all the time, but he seems to come less and less, and when he does, he’s ornery, glaring at you whenever he catches you looking at him (that part is… fair. You need to stop looking at him so much.) 

The end of the semester comes around again, this time with sunshine and warmth instead of cold and dark, and you spend your time in a patch of sun on the carpet of your collective living room. Or you try to. The loud party blower Courfeyrac blows in your ear puts a fairly decent barrier between you and your catnap. Your flailing hand catches him across the cheek, and as he falls back, laughing with his hand clutched to his face, you don’t feel all that bad. (He makes you kiss it better. He is perfectly fine. You smile so hard it hurts.)

He announces that the three of you will be hosting the end of term party, and that all you have to do is not be grouchy. You roll your eyes and ask him what he needs help getting. (You bite back the acid taste of anxiety that seeps into the back of your throat.) You tell yourself that you will not let what happened last time happen again. There’s a fair chance he won’t even show up, if the last few weeks are anything to go by. (You ignore the disappointment that joins the anxiety. You will not be upset. You will not even notice.)

You do notice. You notice when your friends start trickling through the door, loud and lively, and you love them, and you wish one of the little groups had dragged him along too. But you have fun, despite the gap that his dark eyes have left in the tapestry of your little family. You feel okay. You feel happy. You think maybe you might be able to live with this. (You wish you didn't have to.)

As it turns out, you don’t have to try (at least not tonight), because you come out of the bathroom and almost run directly into him. You squeak out a little yelp, and stumble on your own socked feet, and then there’s a hand, two hands, gripping your upper arms. His hands. (Strong hands. Long fingers, knuckles hardened like yours are from punching things. You know your fights are different, but you think you would make a lovely set. God damn it.)

You look up, meet his eyes with a clarity that you didn’t have the last time you were this close to him, and he’s looking down at you, and your face feels so warm you think that he must see it. (your contact-addled brain thinks that maybe you can see his cheeks darken. You kick that part of yourself back into a box and sit on the lid.) His lips are open in shock, and you can’t stop looking at them, and you’re relieved beyond anything when he clears his throat and lets his hands drop (because your traitor of a brain remembers exactly how it feels for those lips to touch you). 

“Sorry,” you say, quickly so that he turns his eye back on you. (You think that if you lose this after a week of not having it, you might drown. Weeks of self-control are smoldering at your feet. There is a realization to be had here. You ignore it. He is so much more important.) 

He gives you an odd look, as though that’s not what he was expecting. He tells you it’s fine and he looks away from you again. You panic, reaching out to grab onto his wrist tightly. (His skin is warm under your perpetually cold fingers. Something writhes in your chest.) “Wait,” you say, and you see that he’s looking at you again, and you almost sigh in relief. (You can’t let him leave. You have no idea how long it’ll be until you get to see him.) Part of you, the part on the floor in soot and ash, tells you that you’re being weird, that he’s already in your flat, that he will now most likely be here until everyone else leaves. You grind it under your heel as you step towards him, determined. 

And then you’re close again, and your tongue catches somewhere behind your voicebox and you remember again why you usually listen to the voice in your head that tells you ‘no’ around people. 

“I haven’t seen you,” you say, as though he doesn’t know that. That odd look is back on his face. You flounder for a second and then try again. “I haven’t seen you at anything. I was, I, um, are you alright?” The odd look is tinged with something darker now, but he isn’t pulling away from where your fingers are closed around him. The moment stretches, pulling taut like a rubber band as he stares you down. 

“I had to take some time to deal with something.” He says, as though that answers more questions than it creates. You don't press (none of your business. You missed him like a missing limb, but you are not friends. You can’t press.) He looks down and you follow his gaze to where you’re touching him. Oh. You let go. (Your hand feels impossibly cold. You try not to think about it.) 

“Are you back now?” The words pass your lips before you can think to stop them, tone too hopeful, too raw. You want to kick yourself. (It’s not your business. He’s not your friend.) You look up at him. He looks… something. Confused, maybe, but not angry. 

“I,” there’s an uncertainty there that you’ve only ever felt on your side of these conversations. You hold your breath. “Do you... want me to be back?” He asks like it’s something he’s never considered. He’s looking at you with an expression you’ve never seen before. There’s an openness there that you’ve never seen. It’s cautious, but it’s there. You don’t understand why he cares what you want so suddenly. (You disregard the thought that he might have always cared. That doesn’t fit. It wouldn’t make any sense.) 

“Yes.” You say, and it’s so soft you’re almost afraid he hasn’t heard it, but his lips part around a slow exhale (you can’t stop yourself from watching them. You’ve completely abandoned any hope of separating yourself from your feelings for him.) Your heart is fucking racing. “Yes.” You say again, and then because it’s suddenly very important that he understands this, “you’re one of us. You’ve always been one of us.” You thought he knew that, you thought that that’s why he always came back. You’re not so sure anymore. “I thought you knew that.” 

He gives you an awkward little laugh. (You want to kiss him. This is ridiculous. Your heart is going far too fast.) “Guess I do now.” He says, and he’s smiling an awkward little smile. (At you, smiling at you. Your knees feel weak. You want to hate yourself for not being more immune to this. You cannot bring yourself to do anything but revel in it.) 

“Good,” you tell him, because it is. You know your face is burning up and idly hope that the dim lights do a well enough job of hiding it. 

“Good,” he parrots back. Your face hurts from fighting your grin. He clears his throat, looking away from you for a moment before his eyes fix on yours again. They don’t flick down (they do. You know that they flicked to your lips. Just a mistake. Nothing notable. You need to just take what you can get. This is more than you’ve ever thought you’d get.) “There’s food here.” He says. You twist your hands together so you don’t grab his. “You wanna go get some?” It feels monumental, it feels earth-shattering. It feels like you’re floating. It feels like he’s asking for so much more than he really is (this is not a love confession). 

“Yeah, sure,” it feels immense. It feels like you’re agreeing to so much more than you are. You start walking with him and your hand brushes his. You will your pulse to slow. (This is not a love confession.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please give me feedback! i love to see what everyone thinks <3

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment and leave kudos if you liked this and want to see more!


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